Deciphering Illegible Inscriptions on Headstones - could modern technology help?

[Keith Sherwood]

Hi, Everyone.
It occurred to me today as I walked through a couple of Cambridgeshire churchyards, trying to decipher headstones whose inscriptions had been pretty much erased by a combination of wind and rain over the years, whether modern technology has ever been used to discover what long-lost inscriptions might have once said.
Someone I was talking to recently said that lasers have a remarkable ability to pick up details that don't appear to the naked eye to still be visible.  Are there any scientific minds out there who might know whether there are such things as portable lasers or scanners, and indeed whether any technology such as this has ever been used as a tool in family history research on fading gravestones?
Just thought I'd ask...
Regards, keith 

[DonHugo]

Sounds like a good question for a University Physics or Forensics Dept.

Lasers, thermal imaging, . . ?

Hugo

[Koromo]

Found it!  I knew I'd read something, somewhere, sometime ... but not exactly portable!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7024672.stm

 
 Koromo

[Calverley Lad]

What about taking a good photo, then using Adobe Photoshop use to invert image (think thats the word?)
I used to use it to change the characteristics of the photo (photo goes a deep purple colour, allowing the lettering to be read).
The computer must be top notch to allow the once 6/8meg picture to change into 128/256 meg picture file.
If the stonework containing the inscription is badly corroded, nothing that I have ever seen can resurrect the image.
 Brian

[Nick29]

If the stonework containing the inscription is badly corroded, nothing that I have ever seen can resurrect the image.
 Brian

Well, five years ago I would have believed you, but I saw a feature on the news this week about a professor who can get fingerprints from metal that has been wiped clean.  So, I wouldn't ever say it's impossible.

[Keith Sherwood]

All very interesting,
But I can't see a gadget that might do the trick being marketed at a local family history fair in the near future.  For technology in our family history research we'll have to make do for the time being with our good old fiche and microfilm readers; and hope that weather conditions suit next time we're stumbling round that churchyard/cemetery.  If the light shines across the stone from a certain angle at a certain time of day; if it's just been raining and the stones are wet; if moss has grown in the inscription and its miraculously picked out in green.  That sort of thing...
keith

[dollylee]

Thanks for posting that link Koromo..... the article was very interesting and the results they were getting were truly amazing.

Keith  you forgot: standing on your head, holding your breath and having angels on your shoulder.   

dollylee

[chinakay]

What about taking a good photo, then using Adobe Photoshop use to invert image (think thats the word?)

We try that on a regular basis but it doesn't add much...there's too little image and too much clutter usually....

Cheers,
China

[Nick29]

All very interesting,
But I can't see a gadget that might do the trick being marketed at a local family history fair in the near future.  For technology in our family history research we'll have to make do for the time being with our good old fiche and microfilm readers; and hope that weather conditions suit next time we're stumbling round that churchyard/cemetery.  If the light shines across the stone from a certain angle at a certain time of day; if it's just been raining and the stones are wet; if moss has grown in the inscription and its miraculously picked out in green.  That sort of thing...
keith

Ahh, whether it's actually possible, and whether the technology would be cheap enough for domestic use are two different things ! 

Whenever I visit a churchyard these days I take digital photos in high resolution of as many headstones as I can, and from at least two different angles.  In the past I have had some success in adjusting the image in various ways in a photo editor, and I have managed to make out wording that couldn't be read in the original photos.  To be honest, decyphering headstone inscriptions has turned out to be much less of a problem for me than I first envisaged when I first started, because most of my ancestors were too poor to have them !